Father José Landaverde and Occupy El Barrio led a march against immigration detention from Little Village to downtown Chicago, ending outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Chicago Immigration Court. CIMC caught up with organizer Crystal Vance Guerra after the event. She noted that, "This is the second day of actions leading up to the NATO summit," and the action is "addressing issues that impact us here in Chicago, but also making connections to NATO."

Vance Guerra asked why "the city of Chicago is willing to put in money to fund a summit of people who are propagating wars across the globe." "How is it we have money for war and [immigration] detention but not education?" she asked. "There's all this money for war but not for the people."

Marchers rallied outside the Our Lady of Guadalupe Anglican Mission in Little Village then marched to the Lincoln Methodist Church in Pilsen. They met up with Occupy members and marched downtown to the Chicago Immigration Court at Van Buren and Clinton to hold a press conference and rally against ICE policies. Activists then picketed the space and several activists blocked the doors for over an hour, restricting access to the building. Two of the activists blocking the doors, José Landaverde and Emma Lozano, were arrested after police demanded protestors vacate the space "at request of building management." While the building management's requests were quickly headed, the protestors requests for and end to deportations were disregarded by the police.

After Fr. Landaverde and Lozano were arrested, the crowd rallied to form another picket and march where two other activists were arrested after police demanded they stay on the sidewalk. Vance Guerra said, "When we got to the bridge […] the cops lined up with as many bikes as they could find [to block the street]. One of the young guys who was arrested was crossing the street […] and they arrested a guy from Occupy El Barrio who we all saw as on the sidewalk."

Vance Guerra noted how NATO and US immigration policy overlapped in another, perhaps less intimately connected way, systemic White supremacy. She noted that "the way immigration is controlled in this country is racially motivated." Further, NATO's wars are being fought against "non-White nations, it's all connected."

Leading dissident political analyst and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of linguistics Noam Chomsky voiced his support for planned protests at the 18-21 May NATO summit in Chicago. Chomsky notes how--according to US and NATO propaganda and the logic of the Cold War--NATO should have disbanded with the Warsaw Pact in 1991. It's continued existence and indeed, extension east to former Warsaw Pact countries, shows that NATO became an "international intervention force under U.S. command" with an "official commitment" to "defend the global energy system." Prof. Chomsky winds up by noting that "a protest against NATO is in fact a protest against a vast military machine which of course has no counterpart anywhere and the prospect of endless war and destruction." Finally, he encourages protestors to link up with the Free Bradley Manning Contingent in support of Manning, who allegedly leaked classified materials to Wikileaks in an action unparalleled since Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers.

In a stunning display of the power of popular outrage, the City of Chicago has reversed its revocation of the protest permit for National Nurses United. The group received permission from the City months ago to stage a mass rally for economic justice on the eve of the NATO summit, only to have that permit suddenly cancelled earlier this week. Today, the City blinked, reversing the move to try to kettle the nurses in Grant Park far from the planned Daley Plaza rally site -- after the nurses and their supporters refused to back down. The nurses publicly praised musical headliner Tom Morello and public support for helping to pressure the City to back down. Read more.

NATO - Be the media this May in Chicago: A call-out to progressive civilian journalists

An open call to grassroots reporters: This May, the military, financial and political leaders of NATO and their spinmasters will meet in Chicago. Protesters are coming, too, to oppose NATO’s military agenda and the political and economic agendas of their paymasters. Chicago politicians and national security forces are gearing up to suppress those protests -- an ugly parallel to the lethal suppression of popular will in countries subjected to NATO bombing, occupation and repression. And dollars to donuts, the corporate press will get the story wrong -- and fail to cover the reasons people are coming out to protest.

That's where you come in. Progressive grassroots and civilian journalists -- like you -- will be there, as well, to cover the protests and the larger economic, social and environmental issues that drive opposition to NATO militarism. That’s why Chicago Indymedia is partnering with local and national progressive media makers -- livestreamers, bloggers, print and radio reporters, videographers, photographers and more -- to host the Chicago Independent Media Convergence Center -- CIMCC. Find out how you can get involved -- and how we can support you. Read more.

A church in the shadow of McCormick Place takes a stand for peace and civil liberties

Chicago – Rev. Errol Narain and the congregation of Trinity Episcopal Church are extending open arms to protestors who will be marching against NATO this month. The church, located at 125 E. 26th Street, is the closest congregation to McCormick Place – literally in the shadow of the NATO summit.

Trinity Episcopal has invited protestors arriving from outside Chicago to camp on their lawn during the weekend of May 19th – 21st. To prepare the neighbors for the sight of protestors sleeping in tents on the lawn of the church, the congregation will co-host a Town Hall meeting with the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8) Thursday, May 3rd, from 7 – 9 pm. Read more.

Call in sick and hit the steets: People from across the metro area are kicking off spring actions on May Day, Tuesday, May 1, International Workers' Day, starting with a convergence at LaSalle and Jackson at 10AM to challenge the financial district banksters who line their pockets at the expense of the rest of us. At noon, dozens of groups are mobilizing at Union Park on Chicago's west side to march on the Federal Plaza to demand rights and dignity for immigrants, working class people and the dispossessed eveywhere. Be there! Learn more here.

Coal Power Plants To Close: Midwest Generation announced on February 29th that it will shut down the Fisk and Crawford power plants, on Chicago's southwest side, by 2014. The announcement marks a win for Chicago environmental activists, who struggled mightily for years to highlight local health and environmental problems brought by the plants. See past CITV coverage here and here.

Republic Occupation, Take Two: From the newswire - "50 workers are staging an occupation of Serious Materials, the same Goose Island factory made famous in 2008 when it was owned by Republic Windows and Doors...This morning (Thursday, February 23, 2012), Serious Energy informed the workers that their window factory in Chicago would close effective today. The company said there is no longer manufacturing taking place and they plan to dismantle production immediately. Workers demanded a chance to save these jobs and find a buyer or purchase the factory themselves and start a worker-run enterprise. Serious Energy refused. That same day workers voted to once again occupy their factory to win justice and jobs." But the occupation ended in under a day - "The worker occupation of Serious Energy has ended and an agreement has been reached to keep the plant in operation for 90 days while union members and the company work together to find new ownership to keep the plant open. After 12 hours the occupation has ended with a hopeful workforce." Also, see this video from Labor Beat.

The city has agreed to compensate all arrestees and detainees a total of $6.2 million, divided to members of the class based on the degree of police repression faced, with some class members winning up to $15,000. This settlement represents not only a financial win for protesters and members of the public but the intermediate rulings in the case affirm the rights of public protesters amidst open police crackdowns -- a development expected to help activists planning to protest the NATO / G8 summits in Chicago in May 2012.

On January 18, 2012, by a vote of 45-5, the Chicago City Council approved a controversial ordinance for Chicago public protests in anticipation of protests against the NATO/G8 summit in Chicago in May 2012. Only two mild provisions of the ordinance were removed at the behest of activist outcry, but the vast majority of the draconian rewrite of existing rules is now local law. Provisions include raising of fines of violations, heightening insurance and registration requirements, imposing severe restrictions on sidewalk actions, and redefining "resisting arrest". Read more.

Meanwhile, Adbusters magazine, undeterred by these local developments, has announced a call "In the Tradition of the Chicago 7" to "#OccupyChicago, May 1 -- Bring Tent". Adbusters was the originator of the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City that swiftly grew to become the worldwide Occupy movement, and their callout for an apparent month-long series of Chicago actions echoes the original announcement of Occupy Wall Street. Read more.